Arknights: Endfield

Arknights: Endfield combines fluid combat, elaborate factory building, and Death Stranding-esque building to create a gacha RPG like no other.

Arknights: Endfield is a fantastic free-to-play game. It is still beholden to some of the hangups of a gacha game, with progress gates and luck of the draw dictating your main team.

Arknights: Endfield stands out as one of the most visually stunning RPGs with gacha elements, that also adds several features to freshen up the formula. Still, it can be a bit overwhelming in terms of UI design and some of its systems.

A mish-mash of genres that blend well and give you a lot to do for the price of free.

Did the PS5 need another all-encompassing live service gacha game? Probably not, no – and so our expectations for Arknights: Endfield prior to release were relatively low.

By ditching tower defense for action, industry, and systemic control, Hypergryph bets everything on depth over comfort, and mostly wins.

For a free-to-play game, Arknights: Endfield offers a wealth of well-made content. The factory building, tower defense mechanics, exploration, and team-based combat elements offer engaging hours of play, certainly worth the price of admission for fans of those genres. Mid to late game, Arknight: Endfield loses a bit of luster, devolving into more tedious gacha mechanics and not evolving its systems enough to keep the fun going for more casual players.

Those willing to tolerate a dull beginning and archaic exploration for the sake of a stunning ending and deep (if imperfect) lore will have a blast in Arknights: Endfield. This is a game for fans of the Arknights universe and for those who seek narrative in gacha games, not just action. But those short on time, who aren't ready to spend time with a map on their phone and who want an engaging, advanced combat might not find what they seek. This is a game of contrasts: in some places it's brill...

Arknights: Endfield is unlike anything else in the market, even if the sweeping premise feels admittedly low-key due to the writing, and combat desperately needs more depth.

Arknights: Endfield undeniably is a visual masterclass with an easy to learn but fun to master combat system and world to explore. However, it struggles with pacing by throwing tutorial after tutorial at you with its overly complicated base-building and factory mechanics.

Despite its gorgeous world and characters, Arknights: Endfield is stuck deep in gacha purgatory. A game that does not respect your time, or reward it.